“A Great Place to Work ”

Comp & Benefits

Work/Life Balance

Senior Management

Culture & Values

Career Opportunities

Former Employee - Anonymous Employee

Former Employee - Anonymous Employee

I worked at AOL full-time

Pros

The best thing about AOL is the employees, who are brilliant and congenial. The facilities in the various buildings and locations are great, the benefits are fantastic, and it's a good place to learn about a variety of technologies, products and services. There is a deep knowledge of the industry still vested in the many employees that have been there for more than a decade.

Cons

AOL keeps reinventing itself. In many ways this is a good thing, because it is adapting itself to the realities of the current industry.

I worked for AOL for over 10 years before they finally did layoffs in my team. In that time I met some of the best engineering talent around. Given the right direction these people can build anything, and can scale bigger than anyone.

Cons

I lost track of how many projects I've built that withered on the vine. Its not that there is no direction, its that strategy and direction change constantly. It had gotten a little better once Brad Garlinghouse left, but most engineers are frustrated because they're shooting at moving targets with too few resources (the layoffs have cut too deeply).

Another con: there is very little room for advancement. Management has laid off too many people to get the work done, so every team is short-handed, and managers who make an issue of this are seen as ineffective and part of the problem. Management has no perception of what it takes to develop products.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Stick with a plan, for God's sake. Hire enough people to get the job done. Your mid-level managers are now afraid to ask for help when they are understaffed because of the culture you've built.

Some good people there and good pay as a contractor. It was also rather flexible and relaxed in the office.

Cons

Lots of changes in direction and overall poor choices like the commitment to Patch. Due to poor choices regarding what to fund I saw many people get laid off, some of which were there for many years and had tons of knowledge that was essential to the workings of AOL systems.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Hint: Listen to your customers. When I was there I looked in to a customer feedback link for CORE services only to find out that #1 it was broken, #2 nobody was reading the feedback and #3 nobody had any power to respond or react to the feedback.